Chip looked. “Um. No. That clamp is now a permanent fixture.”
Chapter 23: Baring the Brontë.
The drill was silent at last. So was the generator. Careful bat-patrols had shown no sign of Maggot-awareness. The bats had flown off to trail some more droppings and trigger another explosive . . . two valleys away.
The rats were off filling Molotov cocktail bottles with alcohol. On a “one-for-me, one-for-the-Maggots” basis, Chip suspected. The dexterous galago had gone to screw on lids—Melene and Doll were still keen to get him to screw on anything and anywhere. That left Chip alone with Virginia, who had appeared to have the same in mind earlier. But he needed the strength of another human for these jobs.
Chip and Virginia began maneuvering the little tank trailer out of the workshop. The task was difficult, since the new rack of bolted-on pieces of angle iron kept catching on the doorframe. In addition, the trailer was festooned with a tangle of barbed wire rolls, on top of knee-buckling loads of fertilizer bags, on top of diesel drums. Once empty fertilizer bags were now bulging full of wire snares, pipe bombs, homemade caltrops, and everything from aerosol cans to a gallon can of floor-tile glue. The remaining space was taken by bundles of hinged ceiling planks set up with tenpenny nails and bangstick cartridges. There were still bags of Molotovs to come.
And the insecticide bombs, which consisted of powder stuffed into the condoms which Virginia had found in the back of a desk drawer in the workshop. Someone had obviously believed in the colony policy of increasing the human capital—as soon as they’d got this reproductive act perfect, which, of course, required practice.
Virginia had asked him why anyone would need rubber balloons in a workshop. Chip had managed to choke out some kind of preposterous answer, which she had accepted without question. He was beginning to realize that, for all the girl’s evident shy passion for him, she was an utter naif. The odd combination was giving him . . .
Fits.
He could feel his defenses crumbling. For all his detestation of Shareholders, Chip could no longer fool himself into thinking that the girl was simply toying with him out of idle-rich-girl ennui. Now, watching her wrestling energetically with the trailer, he felt his defenses crumble some more. Virginia’s forehead was beaded with sweat. Trickles of it coursed through the dust and grime on her face. Her lips were pulled back in a grimace, exposing slightly-skewed front teeth. For all the world, she reminded him of—
Dermott. Except this girl was prettier—a lot prettier—and . . .
Sigh. Smarter, yeah. A lot smarter. And . . .
Virginia noticed him staring at her. Her grimace turned into a smile. Not a coy smile, or a coquettish one. Just—a smile.
Sigh. His eyes shied away from her and came to rest on one of the insecticide bombs. The sight of that bulging container triggered off a rapid free association in his mind.
He drove those thoughts away, fiercely, almost frantically. That road led to disaster!
* * *
Finally, they got the trailer outside. Next came filling the tank. They found a hose. Now all they had to do was start a raw brandy siphon. Oh, and calm the rats. They were going to get hysterical about Chip swiping their booze.
In the gray dawn light Chip caught sight of the distant flicker of returning batwings. He couldn’t but feel relieved. Funny. In those far off days, about a week ago, bats, rats and humans shared a war and little else. Now . . . they were welded together by their struggle to stay alive. Even this Shareholder girl. She’d worked like a Vat. Chip had to admit she looked a bit like a Vat. The glasses and the skew teeth did it. A good Shareholder had those made-of-plastic-looking regular teeth and contacts or eye surgery at the specialist unit in the ship. “Toss me that rope.”
She did.
“I’ve been meaning to ask—why do you have to wear glasses?”
“Because I can’t see much without them,” she said shortly. It was apparent he had trodden on a nerve.